Excerpts from U.S. Supreme Court majority opinion in Plessy v. Ferguson, May 18, 1896

We consider the underlying fallacy of the plaintiff’s argument to consist in the assumption that the enforced separation of the two races stamps the colored race with a badge of inferiority.  If this be so, it is not by reason of anything found in the act, but solely because the colored race chooses to put that construction upon it.  The argument necessarily assumes that if, as has more than once been the case, and is not unlikely to be so again, the colored race should become the dominant power in the state legislature . . . it would thereby relegate the white race to an inferior position. We imagine that the white race at least would not necessarily acquiesce in this assumption.  The argument also assumes that social prejudices may be overcome by legislation, and that equal rights cannot be secured to the negro except by an enforced commingling of the two races. We cannot accept this proposition.  If the two races are to meet upon terms of social equality, it must be the result of natural affinities, a mutual appreciation of each other’s merits and a voluntary consent of individuals….Legislation is powerless to eradicate racial instincts or to abolish distinctions based upon physical differences, and the attempt to do so can only result  in accentuating the difficulties of the present situation. If the civil and political rights of both races be equal one cannot be inferior to the other civilly or politically. If one race be inferior to the other socially, the Constitution of the United States cannot put them upon the same plane. . . .

The judgment of the court below is affirmed.

Document 5.1.3